On Intelligence

Contrasting neatly with Hofstadter's book is On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. I had seen the book mentioned in several places, but it was Steve Gibson gushing over it on his Security Now podcast that catalyzed me into action. I brought the paperback with me on a recent trip and got nearly through it all on one long flight.

The meat of Hawkins' book is exactly the territory where Hofstadter are not tread. Hawkins shares the same fascination of the emergent qualities of the mind with Hofstadter, but he also has a deep background in nuts-and-bolts neurology, and a passion to connect the two.
Hawkins delivers a speculative yet compelling schematic of the neocortex that, at worst, should inspire debate, research and careers. It is the sort of brain book I wish I could have read in high school.

I had heard a lot about Numenta's HTMs, a software implementation of Hawkins' model, and expected the book to be more of an HTM primer. The book hints at Numenta's active research but makes no mention at all of HTMs. So while the material may be a good prerequisite to starting work with HTMs, don't expect to learn about them here.